Epilogue
Ambrose MacLeod sat at a table in the back of a particular pub and examined the events of the previous pair of fortnights.
All had gone to plan with Samuel and Harriet, which didn’t surprise him. The lad generally ran in several directions at once for most of the day and night, but he had a good heart, a keen eye, and he was fond of a good love story.
Ambrose understood.
He looked up from his ale at the sound of his companions making their way through the pub.
There was the usual squawking, of course, though he supposed that was mostly caused by their new Colonist associate’s incessant need to vex any mortal in his path.
He was tempted to perhaps give the man a gentle nudge back toward those amber waves of grain across the Pond, but it was hard to deny Wrestling’s ability to not only carry a tune, but leave it soaring into spacious skies where angels no doubt wept over its beauty.
Put simply.
Fulbert sat down next to him with a sigh, Hugh created a decent chair for Wrestling before he sat down in his own and dumped his armful of the usual business onto the table, and John Drummond pursed his lips as he sat, but remained silent.
Ambrose put that aside for something to ask about later, then raised a mug to his compatriots.
There was a bit of the usual grumbling, but what could they do besides toast a match well made?
Fulbert drained his mug, sighed in pleasure, then looked at Ambrose assessingly.
“Why are we meeting at this same pub?” he asked, blinking owlishly. “Our next project is to the north.”
Ambrose shrugged. “I didn’t want anyone to get lost.”
His brother-in-law looked primed and ready to say something unpleasant, but apparently his current troubles kept him from it.
Ambrose knew all about Fulbert’s current troubles thanks to his own sweet sister’s having told him all about them, but he wasn’t going to give voice to them himself.
He did, however, nudge Fulbert when it seemed as if the man would never willingly reveal his torment.
Fulbert shot him a cross look, then seemingly steeled himself for the telling of something truly dire, indeed. “Fiona,” he announced grimly, “wants a date.”
Hugh rifled through his collection of papers, then selected a large calendar adorned with felines. “Which one?”
“How would I know that?” Fulbert asked, looking thoroughly baffled. “She said she wanted a date and damn the woman if she didn’t fetch a rapier off the wall that boasts young Stephen’s most exclusive collection of the same and point it at me threateningly to have it.”
Hugh set aside his calendar carefully, then reached for his clipboard. He continued to wait, his pencil hovering over a piece of fine parchment secured thereto.
John Drummond rolled his eyes. “The particular date doesn’t matter, you idiot,” he said in disgust. “Your wife wants to go out on a date.”
“Then any date will do?” Fulbert asked, frowning.
“Does she have a favorite?” Hugh asked, looking equally baffled, “or shall we choose one for her?”
The Drummond sighed gustily. “How did either of you manage to win a woman? Lady Fiona wants to be squired about on an outing.”
“Such as throwing rotten veg at miscreants?” Hugh ventured.
Fulbert glared at him. “How did you ever manage to win a woman?
“Well, collecting it and keeping it to the side for that sort of event kept my wife from throwing it at me,” Hugh said reasonably. “’Tisn’t a completely unpleasant way to pass an afternoon.”
Ambrose exchanged a look with the Drummond that needed no clarification, then turned to his brother-in-law.
“Fiona wants you to take her on a proper outing,” he said. “Supper. The theater. A stroll through the park if the weather’s fine.”
Fulbert looked slightly horrified, then he scowled. “Damn that nevvy of mine. This is all his fault, what with his endless blathering on about dates and outings and pastries. ‘Tis no wonder my wife has lost the plot!”
Ambrose suspected his sister had found quite a good one, but there was no need to rub salt in Fulbert’s wounds.
“We could perhaps delight her with some perfectly tuned harmonies,” Wrestling said, with only one eyebrow lifted and his nose not quite so far in the air as it had been in times past. “McKinnon, what sort of music do you have there?”
Ambrose watched Hugh pull forth several pieces for male quartets, which was definitely a start.
Wrestling frowned at Hugh. “What else are you shuffling about in that ample pile? The sound is extremely annoying.”
“I’m looking over advertisements for pianos for Mistress Harriet so we might have her accompany us on our musical soirées.”
Ambrose couldn’t bring himself to look at Fulbert, but he did reach out and clap his brother-in-law on the shoulder. Just once, though. He had to leave the man his pride.
“Surely there are other sorts of entertainments we could indulge in on these pleasant evenings we’re planning,” he said, looking at the Drummond pointedly. “Vocal masterpieces interspersed with the occasional instrumental offering, or perhaps …”
“Verse?” Hugh put in breathlessly.
The Drummond rolled his eyes. “If we must.” He chewed on his pipe for a moment or two, then looked at Fulbert. “De Piaget, what say you to the same?”
“Well,” Fulbert said, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m not opposed to it in essentials.”
“And you are an Englishman,” the Drummond allowed, “with a not-terrible accent. Perhaps you could take over giving voice to the occasional selection from some gloomy poet or other.”
Ambrose imagined he was going to owe John Drummond an enormous favor for saving Fulbert’s pride and their own ears by giving him a noble labor to do that didn’t involve trying to produce musical notes.
“But not,” the Drummond added crisply, “Burns.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Fulbert said, his eyes moist. “But Shakespeare, or Wordsworth … perhaps even Yeats, if necessary.”
Silence fell softly. Ambrose supposed that happened when hearts were soothed and poetry elevated to its proper place in the grander scheme of things.
Well, that and he could now look forward to the holidays and a decent quartet without having to bring along cotton fluff for his ears.
“We’ll need more than one accompanist,” the Drummond said, setting down his pipe and rubbing his hands together briskly. “In cases where events beyond our control interfere with our rehearsals and young Harriet is called to other duties.”
“I wonder,” Wrestling said, “if perhaps another of my granddaughters—the appropriate number of generations removed, of course—might be up to the task.”
“You mean the wee lass who’s just arrived,” the Drummond said, looking at Wrestling pointedly. “That other granddaughter who also belongs to my line?”
Wrestling nodded, apparently refusing to be baited. “She’s proficient in a wide variety of instruments.”
“We could enlist the aid of both of them,” Hugh said, apparently warming to the idea.
“Young Harriet could play the pianoforte whilst her cousin chooses from a variety of other means of ornamentation.” He looked off into the distance, his eyes bright with emotion.
“Who would have thought such glorious soirées could be ours from both sides of the Pond?”
Wrestling nodded wisely. “Party on, dude.”
Fulbert shuddered. Ambrose, as he usually did, agreed.
The Drummond slapped his hands on the table and rose. “Very well, I’m off to make certain my other wee granddaughter’s safely settled.”
Ambrose looked at him mildly. “She doesn’t believe in paranormal happenings, you know.”
The Drummond pursed his lips. “She gets that from me.”
“The lads are going to need larger accommodations,” Hugh ventured. He pulled out a selection of real estate circulars. “I’ve been doing some research.”
“Those are inhabited,” Fulbert noted.
“Not for long,” John Drummond said with a pleasant smile. “Come along, McKinnon, and let’s be off to solve their housing problem for them first.” He paused. “Wrestling, are you coming?”
Wrestling pulled his hat out of thin air and plopped it rakishly atop his noble brow. “I’m always eager for a good skirmish with property overlords. We’ll toss their tea into the nearest body of water if they won’t cooperate.”
“Well, you’ve done it before,” Fulbert said with hardly a snort.
Ambrose suspected that might very well be true, even if Wrestling’s leafy contributions to a certain Colonial harbor had been of a more ethereal nature.
“One more toast,” the Drummond said suddenly. “Lads?”
Ambrose pulled himself back to the moment at hand and realized things had gotten away from him.
He plucked a heavy pewter mug out of the ether, then realized Laird John was waiting for him to take his proper place at the front of the company.
He waited until all and sundry were prepared, then he raised his mug.
“To love,” he said firmly.
“To love!”
He refused to show any of the emotion that raced through him, though he could plainly see he wasn’t the only one so moved by the noble nature of their current venture.
He watched Hugh and the Drummond make their way, followed by Wrestling who was hardly swearing at all, out of the pub to be about their scouting out of proper housing. He glanced at Fulbert to find his brother-in-law watching with his usual assessing glance.
“What?” Ambrose said, not having to dig too deeply for annoyance.
“Just wondering when you’re going to put yourself on the list of matches to be made,” Fulbert said mildly.
Ambrose shot him a look. “I will, when you introduce me to a woman with a decent tally of years—”
“Mrs. Pruitt has a decent tally of years.”
“Which she should have spent commanding a large armada of Her Maj’s finest ships,” Ambrose said darkly. “She is not for me and I am not for her, no matter how many emails you’ve sent her with lists of my genealogy.”
“What you need, brother, is an American lass. Well, a woman of a certain age, rather. Mature in years, steel in her spine, and with a high tolerance for absurdities of all kinds.”
Ambrose couldn’t deny there was something to that, but alas, the goodly work before him took precedence over matters of the heart at the moment.
“I think we have a very delicate situation with young Theophilus that will require all our focus,” he said firmly.
“With his gel, you mean,” Fulbert corrected. “She’s a fitting match for him, I daresay, if he manages to keep up with her.”
Ambrose nodded, drained his mug of the very fine house ale that had been on tap for several hundred years, then sent his mug into oblivion. “I’m off to see what there is to be seen.”
Fulbert looked at him knowingly, but wisely said nothing.
Ambrose rose and made his way to the door of the pub where he encountered the same very handsome woman he’d met a fortnight earlier.
What a coincidence.
“To love?” she asked.
He put his hand over his heart, wondering how many other things she’d heard that evening. “’Tis the best thing to drink to, wouldn’t you agree?”
She smiled and nodded, then walked out the door he held open for her.
He almost fell over as another soul pushed by him, but it was simply Fulbert sailing past with a pointed look.
Ambrose wondered whom he might ask for ideas on how a man of a certain age might ask a woman of an equally discreet number of years to accompany him on an outing when there were paranormal difficulties to be overcome, but …
He shook his head over his own ridiculously romantic notions, set his face to the rising of a waxing moon, and made his way back down the street he’d already traversed that night. The die was cast, the scenes set, and the play was the thing.
He looked up at that pale sliver of a moon and supposed he might be forgiven if he spared a wish for himself—er, for the happiness of Samuel and his wee faery, and for the other lads from that self-same large family they were soon to be shepherding toward their own happily ever afters.
He took a deep breath—mostly—and walked on.
To love, indeed.